


r u mine?

by krizzlesandblues



Category: Winner (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, M/M, Other, Soulmates (?) Maybe, cameo!Kang Younghyun/Young K, cameo!Park Jaehyung/Jae
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:28:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26083465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/krizzlesandblues/pseuds/krizzlesandblues
Summary: you will wake to forget.i sleep to remember.
Relationships: Kang Seungyoon/Lee Seunghoon
Comments: 4
Kudos: 17





	1. //lee seunghoon

**Author's Note:**

> This work is originally posted on [twitter](https://twitter.com/cieruleaxxe/status/1269510656413143040), although I had to do a few corrections.
> 
> Might as well remind you again: this fic is a pretty vague fic, because one barely remembers, the other chooses to forget. Maybe. (spoiler?)

_—here isn’t where i wanna be_

_and satisfaction feels like a distant memory—_

* * *

* * *

  
  


He doesn’t remember.

All that registers in his mind is that he’s lying on his bed, in his room, his body freshly dipped from agony and pain.

That, and there’s a cast on his right leg.

It doesn't help that his brain is muddled, his memories are hazy, except for a faint, _faint_ echo—

//

He asks Song Minho what happened.

Why he feels like shit, his leg is on a cast, and why he’s here.

Why Minho’s eyes are suspiciously puffy and red and Jinwoo-hyung positively looks like he wants to beat someone to a pulp.

A strangled, disbelieving gasp escapes Minho’s lips.

“Hyung,” Minho whispers—chokes—eyes wide and disbelieving.

_“You don’t remember?”_

//

Jinwoo-hyung, on the other hand, doesn't look too surprised. His face is still a careful mask, eyes blank, not betraying his mind.

Yet he says one sentence, and it is more than enough to stun him.

“Seunghoon, you almost _died_.”

//

_“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I love—”_

_Choked sobs, tears dripping down to his cheeks. Like rain. Endless rain._

_“I hope you forgive me, hyung.”_

_Tears. More tears. He couldn’t tell the difference of when it started and how it will end anymore._

_Blinking streetlights._

_A silent scream—_

_—darkness._

//

He strolls down the empty, graffiti-lined streets, breathing in the dank, albeit smelly air. He doesn’t know why he’s here, instead of being with the rest of his band members and practicing.

[ _Which is weird_ , he thinks. He is not one to dally around, regardless if he is sick or not. ]

But somehow, he has found himself exploring this corner of the city, an area he’d never thought existed at all.

However, the streets are oddly familiar.

As if, once upon a time, he’d been here and spent a huge amount of time—

—by himself?

—or with someone else?

Yet as he walks on, it is as if he’s walking on a major dèja vú.

Yet as he walks away, it feels as if he’d left ~~a part of himself~~ something behind.

//

_“You wanna pursue this path? It's a chaotic one, hyung. Of bass guitars and banging drums and rowdy band members and smelly shit and beer—wait. You_ hate _alcohol.”_

_“That’s fine.”_

_“_ Fine _? Do you hear yourself? Hahaha, hyung. You hate the mess. You dislike chaos. Yeah you like rock but this is—”_

_“—because I get @*'!?*$*+# you.”_

_A pretty, ravishing, sweet sad smile._

_“You’ll always % <&@@*:*# me, hyung.”_

//

Life passes by normally.

If by _normally_ , he muses, is composed of band practices with his co-members, occasional nagging from Minho, and worried glances from Jinwoo-hyung.

Nobody brings up that topic of him almost dying anymore. Instead, his friends simply focus on making sure he’ll be well and his leg will be okay in no time.

He suspects it's because they've finally realized that he really doesn’t remember shit, or it was just best to leave it at that.

~~Or both, judging from Jinwoo-hyung’s cryptic words, but he pays it no mind.~~

//

He somehow develops a fascination with guitars, even though he’d mostly focused on being a vocalist and occasional lyricist. 

[And the scent of dry beer and soju, but he doesn’t tell anyone.]

Weird as it is, he doesn’t find the odd appeal sudden. As if it is deeply ingrained in him, stored somewhere his conscious brain cannot retrieve.

~~Or refuses to retrieve.~~

//

Days get stranger and stranger.

He remembers random things—certain days, certain things, certain notes that echo in his brain over and over again.

_Once_ , he finds himself buying a pack of yogurt drinks no one drinks.

_Twice_ , he buys a large-sized vanilla latté he doesn’t even like.

_Thrice_ , he randomly plucks on a bass guitar’s strings, trying to pick out a tune.

And more than the number of those instances combined, he returns to that graffiti-lined street without fail, walking around, ~~as if straining to see or hear someone he’ll never hear again~~.

//

_“Stay. Please. Stay.”_

_…_

_“Why won’t you stay?”_

_…_

_“Can’t you stay?”_

“I cannot stay with you, hyung.”

//

One morning, he wakes up with a sharp jolt, gasping heavily for air. Everything feels cold, so cold, as if he’d stayed out too long under the rain.

The coldest part is probably his chest, where he hears no sound.

It is Jinwoo-hyung who calms him down, bringing him a glass of warm water. Unlike before, Jinwoo-hyung doesn’t ask if he remembers anything.

Yet for some reason, he wants to ask the older man if he knows anything he doesn’t know.

//

In the weeks after that, he finds himself writing lyrics that do not sound his own, or Minho’s, or even Jinwoo-hyung’s.

Something that Younghyun or Jaehyung may write, but not him.

The lyrics are not him—his band members tell him that—but oddly, the lyrics make sense to him.

He ends up composing the melody, recording the whole song, mixing and polishing it in the best way possible.

Yet he never adds it to their albums, or solo releases.

It is a song only meant for him to hear.

//

Months pass by too fast and too slow, and he manages to gain full use of his right leg. He can now jump around onstage and even slip out a few slick dance moves—earning screams from the crowd and groans from his members.

Life is normally _normal_ , or so he'd like to think.

If by normal meant breathing without lungs and living without a beating heart—quite literally—then, Lee Seunghoon decides it’s normal.

Steady.

_~~Insane.~~ _

//

Sometimes, whenever he strolls down on a crowded street, he feels a pair of eyes staring right through his back. 

Hears someone clearly whisper his name over the din of a bar he and his band are performing.

It is too easy to ignore it, really. However, there is something in how that stare burns his skin, or how that whisper stirs and chills his soul.

And before he can even think more clearly about it, his mind shuts down.

//

He goes back to that street on a late-night hour, lingering longer than necessary. He inhales the heavy scent of sewers and cheap liquor and cigarette smoke, gazing distantly at the still chaos in front of him.

Empty, vintage cars. Cracked, graffiti-filled red-brick walls. Blinking street lights.

No person in sight.

And a foggy memory—

//

_Hurried, heated kisses stolen in a narrow alleyway, lips cracked yet plush and sweet. Thin arms looped around his neck; his own hands on the other’s fragile hips._

_Heaven. Hell. Hips grinding against each other. Moaned pleas, broken gasps, please please **please—**_

_Teeth pressing on the soft, pinkish skin of his neck, tasting of sweat and sweetness and perfection. Another moan, just a little louder, erupts from the other as he tongues the crook of his shoulder._

_“Ah, please, please, hyung—”_

_“I want you,” he heard himself whisper, hands on bare, soft skin. A prayer, a litany, a desperate wish as he rolls his hips harder. “Tell me I can have you.”_

_Not just for tonight. Or any night._

_Be with me every night._

And everyday.

_All he got was a desperate kiss, and from there he found his answer._

//

—his absent heart doesn’t break. Doesn’t freeze. 

Doesn’t beat.

He asks himself, _who am I?_

_And who is he?_

_And—just in case—did he steal my heart?_

**_Literally?_ **

//


	2. //kang seungyoon, or so he'd like to call himself

_—i guess i’ll take this pain instead of your name_

_tonight, i wish i was your boy_

_(run away from me, run away from me)—_

* * *

* * *

  
  
  


He knows.

He knows he shouldn’t have.

It was a move that guaranteed failure and heartaches and unfulfilled promises.

Then again, he was nothing but foolish and daring and _maybe just a little too insane in lo—_

//

People—if you can call it like that—like him are not supposed to digress by the rules. 

The rules are there for a reason, after all. Rules are meant to keep order in place and chaos at bay. Rules are meant to draw lines they cannot cross.

Rules are meant to _restrain_.

Perhaps it’s the rules. Perhaps the rules have chafed him to a point that sometimes he cannot recognize himself. Perhaps the rules have pushed him to be someone _everybody_ does not expect him to be.

Or maybe because the rules started not to matter anymore after he met _him_.

//

_“You know,” he murmured as he gazes up at the ceiling, the room dark save for the glow-in-the-dark stickers plastered all over the walls, “sometimes I really wanna know more about you.”_

_He froze. Subtly._

_A rule he cannot break: Do not let others know who you are._

_“Why the sudden curiosity?” he asked as a reply. “Two weeks ago you treated me as if I was just a ghost of an acquaintance.”_

_A handsome smile on a gorgeous face, and oh, just this once—he wanted to be more than selfish._

_To be more than who he is supposed to be._

_“And the two weeks after that,” he grinned, “I realized you’re more than just a ghost of an acquaintance._

_“You interest me, Kang.”_

//

Several rules he must never forget: _Do not interact too much with humans. Keep your distance. Be friendly, but remember to draw your line._

He has valiantly tried, really. He has truly done his best to do so.

Strangely, however, he always finds himself lured to those small, magnetizing orbs, luring them both to an unavoidable destruction.

He finds himself wanting to hear his voice, cracking jokes and spilling stories and humming songs under his breath.

He finds himself stepping closer, almost crossing the lines drawn between them.

He finds himself wanting _more_.

Of course, he knows this is dangerous.

He gambles anyway.

//

_For this instance, he used the name Kang Seungyoon. Not too showy. A bit ordinary for him to be able to mingle better with others._

_(And if anyone asks, he’s 24, from Busan. Or Daegu. Wherever the hell those places were.)_

_“Kang Seungyoon,” he rolled his name in his tongue. And gods, he had to swallow a shiver that frissoned down his spine._

_“Seungyoon, Yoonie,” he turned his head, grinning crookedly at him. “Y’know, if you joined our band and become our second vocal, we’re gonna earn fucking loads.”_

_The band members snickered, shaking their hands, while he rolled his eyes, saying, “That’s ridiculous, hyung. My voice won’t sell.”_

_“Bet all my remaining money it would,” he refuted, his stupid grin widening. “I mean, have you heard yourself? You could fucking summon a lot of patrons with just one vocal run from you.”_

_He wanted to tell him that yes, he had heard his own voice. That yes, his voice can summon all beings of different kind and classes, even the dead souls—_

_—but he did not tell him._

_Instead, all he uttered was, “Hyung. Stop being stupid.”_

Or else I’ll—

_He pauses._

_Or else he’ll what?_

//

He tries to know of his condition after that harrowing accident through different people.

Some say he broke his bones, his right leg on a heavy cast. Several mutter he’s still unconscious, his friends keeping vigil. Others say that it seems everything will be fine.

Of course, no one tells him that he is dead. Or good as dead. No one tells him that it is strange that the human boy is still alive, despite his...connections to him.

He’d expected this.

But for him to be alive, he had to do something to preserve his life.

A price he holds dearly...a price he does not deserve to hold.

A price stolen in his sleep.

//

And so weeks pass, without him intertwining his life with others anymore. 

[Not that he actually minds it. He knows that if... _his_ friends ever see him again, he may as well throw himself into Hell.]

And so weeks pass, pissing and hiding away in his apartment so far away from everyone.

And so weeks pass, cursing himself over and over again, punishing himself for transgressing the rules, hurting himself for allowing _him_ to be hurt.

And so weeks pass, watching _it_ beat against the silver platter, against the glass walls that keeps it alive.

And so weeks pass, when he’s supposed to be back on his supposed job, yet he simply withers—with only _that_ tethering him to his foolish reality.

//

_“You will watch over humans._

_“You will be their Guide in their music; you will be there to teach them how to strum the strings of a zither or play the flute. You will be their wisdom if they use their voice to spread music._

_“You will be their sage if they ask you how to create music._

_“And remember this, child._

_“Be true to our rules. I know you will be. You know the punishments should you disobey, do you not?”_

_“I do.”_

_“Very well. Now, go.”_

//

Looking back—to that day he’d uttered he knew the punishments once he disobeyed—he just wants to kick his stupid past self.

To be fair, however, no one expected that he would end up doing this.

Not even himself.

He never expected he’d feel an emotion he’d never felt in all eons of his existence, an emotion that changed his perspectives and crashed all his walls.

He never expected to realize that he was lonely, truly lonely all along, and that he needed something— _someone_ —to fill in the gaps of his existence.

He never expected that such emotion, and such realization, will contribute to his eventual downfall—for him to commit an irreversible mistake.

A mistake that the throbbing, bleeding _thing_ encased in a glass cage never fails to remind him.

Even if their Head pardons him for his crime, he knows he’ll never, ever be able to truly forgive himself.

//

He finds himself walking back to that familiar street where they first met. Where everything began, where colors began to spill on his monochromatic world—

—when he began to question himself and the world he’d thought of it as.

//

_“You seem lost.”_

_He turned around, a dismissive glare ready just in case—only for that glare to dissolve quickly._

_A man, taller than he is, way more bulky and quite intimidating for a human._

Go away _, he wanted to say._

_What came out of his mouth was, “I am not.”_

_“Well, you’ve been going in circles around this street, kid. Either you have a penchant for this place, or you’re just literally lost,” the man shrugged._

_He bristled. Who on earth was he, daring to call him_ kid _? He was no child. He was way,_ way _older than he was._

_And how dare he say he was lost—_

_His eyes catch the man’s orbs, and something clicks. A bind, a guiding line._

_Oh, out of all the humans he’d have to guide in their music, and he ended up with this irritating one._

_He steeled himself, taking a deep breath. He can do this. He’d handled way worse humans than him._

_He settled for a polite yet warm tone. “This sounds truly irrelevant but,” he paused. “What kind of music do you pursue?”_

_Laughter echoed in the empty street. Endless laughter. Of disbelief, of shock, of whatever this man is probably feeling from the suddenness of his question._

_“Kid,” the man managed to say in between snickers, “I’ll tell you what music I’m into, and you’ll tell me if you’re truly lost or not.”_

_His eyes narrowed. “I am not a kid,” he muttered. And after a moment’s consideration, “Fine.”_

_The man grinned. “I’m into rock. Alternative. Sort of.”_

_He’d heard of this genre over the recent decades. Studied it, even, just in case._

_“I see. And yes,” he sighed, “I’m lost. I can’t find the diner my friend’s telling me about.” The last part was a lie. There is a real reason why he’s here, on this very street._

_To meet a human he’d have to guide as part of his tasks here in the mortal realm—also known as, **this** man._

_“What diner?” the man asked._

_He told him a name of a diner he’d picked out randomly from a conversation. The man smiled, amused and slightly...fond?_

_“Their food is great, all right,” the man said. “Your friend has a good taste.”_

_“Mn.”_

_“All right, I’ll take you there.”_

_Several greasy French fries and a hamburger later, he realized that this man will be someone great in the future._

_A deep conversation and a playful banter about rock genres later, he realized that this man is someone else; a rare find, or so they say._

_Several hours later, deep into the night, he realized that he probably saw a glimpse of the world he’d never seen before._

//

He pauses in his steps, standing still in the middle of ~~their~~ the street.

He senses faint traces of a human soul, who lingered for quite a while. The traces are familiar on his tongue, the scent distinct to his nose—

Oh. _Oh._

He feels his chest flutter and falter and halt.

What had he been doing here?

Does he— _by any chance, does he—?_

//

That night, as he watches that _thing_ beat twice than its usual speed, he spends hours trying not to scream.

//

Weeks later, while he tunes his guitar, he hears the radio DJ saying something about playing a new song freshly released a day ago. A sudden, yet refreshing change from the singer’s usual genres—the singer is an up-and-coming indie rock band, the DJ gushes.

He really may not have cared for the said band, but the band’s name catches his ears.

Why does it sound familiar—?

— _close the window today_

_don’t freeze in the cold wind_

_if you could think about me_ —

_Ah._

The band’s name. 

This voice.

Somewhat raspy, a little high-pitched, emotional, familiar, warm.

— _and if someone rings the doorbell, don’t open the door_

 _so no one makes you cry like I did_ —

A strange swell of mild hysteria blooms on his chest as he lyrics echo in his head, a few unwelcome memories or so floating in his mind.

— _raining, raining, raining, incessantly pouring (the rain)_

_in my eyes and in my memories, you keep flowing_

_without moving forward, forward, forward (not yet)_

_without an umbrella, I wait for time to wash it away_ —

Raining. Kissing in the rain. Stolen kisses, a forgotten umbrella, sneaking smiles and unbidding laughter and a name whispered over and over again. 

_“Seungyoon, Seungyoon, Yoonie, do you know you’re the best thing that happened to me—”_

He grabs the nearest pillow he can reach and howls as the rainstorm starts pounding outside his room.

//

If he ends up buying a CD with that damn track and playing it over and over again until his tears dry, no one tells him.

Except for that _thing_ in the glass cage, beating in time with the song’s tempo.

//

He realizes that maybe hearing that song may have been a huge mistake.

Because he finds himself scouring the newspapers and flyers just to know where the band will be playing in the coming days.

He tries to convince himself that coming to at least one show will utterly shatter what was left of his will to stay away from his life. That stepping forward will just lead to more mistakes, more heartaches, and more regrets.

Then again, he is but a weak man. He cannot resist.

He cannot deny that he can only take too much pain to handle.

//

Life goes on, or so it seems.

And time passes by, not that he cares for it.

Soon he has to return to his world, face the consequences of his past actions, and deal with them.

But he goes to the band’s concert one last time as his way of saying goodbye, cradling the glass box where _his_ heart lies.

//

_This is how the Fates punished the errants, he mused ruefully as he held **his** hand, cool and unmoving._

_The errants do not suffer the consequences of their mistakes, but those humans who matter to the errants. It will go on and on and on, until those humans die._

_Until they get reincarnated then go through it all over again._

_He could not live with the thought that such a wonderful human would have to endure the scars meant for him. It was his fault—he should not have let his heart govern his mind, he should have not given in, he should have not done this—and his fault alone._

_He buried his face in his hands. ‘What should he do—?’_

_There was a way. Not many people of his kind had done it; they had warned, over and over again, that it was a lifetime's worth of hell, that it was not truly worth it._

_Also, it was selfish and brutal._

_Yet it was the only way that could save the human’s life—for the Fates to personally and cruelly intervene._

_Amidst his tears and constant litanies for forgiveness, he obtained the very thing that attracted him to this man. He stole the very essence of the man he wanted most, the reason why this man was, also, the best thing that happened to him._

**_His_ ** _heart._

 **_He_ ** _would live._

_The Fates would be deceived into thinking that the man was his sole prey, that he’d fully taken his claim as his soul to devour._

_Yet he would not devour **him** , or bother **him** after this._

**_He_ ** _would live, with no memories of him._

 **_He_ ** _would live._

_That was the only thought that would keep him alive._

* * *

* * *

**« coda »**

In a forgotten street, two souls meet again. One lived for so long, the other has just tasted life.

By coincidence, by twist of Fates, their paths cross once more—the very same scenario, the very same mood, the very same faces.

This may just as well be one of Fates’ best-tasting jokes.

This time, however, the human’s question is different.

“Are you mine?”

The non-human is taken aback by the sudden question.

“Why do you suddenly ask?”

In a no-nonsense tone the human asks as a reply, “Then why do you still hold my heart—literally?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Might as well say this.
> 
> The main reason why KSY ends up literally stealing Hoony's heart is so as to declare his 'claim;' meaning, the Fates will never be able to torture Hoony in every reincarnation and feel the agony that's supposed to be given to 'errants.' The Fates would think that Yoonie 'devoured' Hoony, so there's no need to torture him further. And no, it doesn't have to be the heart--anything will do, so long as it is the most important thing to the mortal.
> 
> And by 'errants,' those are the ones who fall for mortals that they're just supposed to guide. :)

**Author's Note:**

> tracks used:
> 
>   * r u mine? by arctic monkeys
>   * tonight (i wish i was your boy) by the 1975
>   * raining by winner
> 

> 
>   
>   
> comments and kudos are appreciated~ ^^


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